A Star Trek Debate

[Cmdr Data]

I am a huge fan of Star Trek. Earlier today, I re-watched an episode on the series. This episode was Star Trek: The Next Generation, season 1, episode 8. I'm not asking you to go watch this episode. I'll provide a brief synopsis to help with the point of the topic.

In this episode, the crew are beamed down to a planet with a young, carefree world. Wesley Crusher is playing with kids his age when he accidentally knocks over a flower installment. This happened in a regulation zone at the time which led to the regulators having to punish him as per their laws since it happened in that district while it was an active regulation zone. The punishment for this was death.

Now, the problem of the episode occurs when the crew of the Enterprise want to save him but face a moral and ethical quandary. You see, the Enterprise crew are bound by different laws. This incident happened to affect two of their policies that directly contradict one another in this situation. The first rule is the prime directive which state the Enterprise cannot interfere with the natural working societies of planets they visit. The second rule is that the captain is responsible for the safety of their crew at all costs.

Debate topic: if you were the commanding officer of the Enterprise, would you save the crewman violating the prime directive effectively tainting a society's existing method of peace? Would you leave the crewman to face the punishments of the society they were visiting to maintain the prime directive? Why? How would you go about solving this from the decision maker perspective?

 

[Lamb]

I would save the crew member because life is more valuable and I would try to convince the other government that the consequences don't correlate well enough to the action committed. If I needed to remove Wesley on my own I would and if that meant stepping down in my position later on, I would do that knowing I made the right choice.

 

[NewCreation435]

I am a huge fan of Star Trek. Earlier today, I re-watched an episode on the series. This episode was Star Trek: The Next Generation, season 1, episode 8. I'm not asking you to go watch this episode. I'll provide a brief synopsis to help with the point of the topic.

In this episode, the crew are beamed down to a planet with a young, carefree world. Wesley Crusher is playing with kids his age when he accidentally knocks over a flower installment. This happened in a regulation zone at the time which led to the regulators having to punish him as per their laws since it happened in that district while it was an active regulation zone. The punishment for this was death.

Now, the problem of the episode occurs when the crew of the Enterprise want to save him but face a moral and ethical quandary. You see, the Enterprise crew are bound by different laws. This incident happened to affect two of their policies that directly contradict one another in this situation. The first rule is the prime directive which state the Enterprise cannot interfere with the natural working societies of planets they visit. The second rule is that the captain is responsible for the safety of their crew at all costs.

Debate topic: if you were the commanding officer of the Enterprise, would you save the crewman violating the prime directive effectively tainting a society's existing method of peace? Would you leave the crewman to face the punishments of the society they were visiting to maintain the prime directive? Why? How would you go about solving this from the decision maker perspective?

I would save the crew member and get out of there fast. Those people are crazy

 

[rstrats]

I'm not sure the prime directive applies here. Saving Wesley doesn't really interfer with the natural development of the society.